Catching up

I’m happy to report I’ve now made a major dent in that list. Don’t worry, the list is still far from completed, but I’m now three for six. Technically, I’m four for seven, as I picked up another job earlier this week and have already wrapped that up. More on that later.

Carved wooden spoons

Since the ice storm last March, I’ve had a healthy selection of green wood for carving spoons, knives and some other items. My wife and I each started one spoon in April, but we didn’t finish our little utensil project that night. We were hoping to wrap up the carving in the next day or two, but that didn’t happen. Although my wife is now elbow deep in three separate crochet projects, and won’t even entertain the thought of adding another project to her to-do list, I was able to finish carving the little spoon I started almost six months ago. I haven’t applied a finish yet, as it’s bit of a messy operation for just one spoon. Once I have a few more items to finish, I’ll don some gloves, open a can of oil and apply a few liberal coats to the items. I’m now two for six.

My sticky desk drawers

When I finished my desk in the spring the drawers all worked nicely. Two months later, they were all sticking like crazy glue. I shaved them down a bit, which was all that was needed to make them operational, but up until a few days ago they had all swelled up to become unusable once again.

Thinking about the humidity this September, I’m not surprised the drawers are at an all-time high, in terms of dimensions. The air conditioning was on all summer, keeping things inside our home cool and somewhat dry. The cooler temperatures of September have caused the air conditioning to remain mostly off. And since we’ve had a fairly wet month, the relative humidity has been high, causing anything made of wood to swell.

As a bit of a test, I shaved down the tops of three of the drawer sides and backs so they would slide nicely, but left one drawer as-is. Right now, it takes the power of a locomotive to open that drawer. I’m hoping it naturally returns to its original size in the coming month or two, when the furnace comes on and helps dry out the air in our home. If Christmas comes and I still can’t easily open the last drawer I’ll take the block plane to it.

Arguably, I’ve only finished three-fourths of this task, but I’m going to let myself off the hook on this one. I’m up to three for six now.

The new project

Last week I wrote about making a fancy button for my wife’s first crochet project. In the time since I finished writing that, I got another order for three more buttons. I’ve also completed that task, so I’ll count that as a job well done. I’m happy with a record of four for seven.

Next week, I’ll share an 11′ long x 5′ wide dining table I’m working on. This was a bit of a rush job, so I’m blasting through it as quickly as possible. It’s needed for Thanksgiving, but I wish I got this order a month ago, not four days ago. I can’t complain though, as this is for a return client and is a lot of fun to build. It just means my to-do list might be stuck at four for seven for a little while longer. Such is life.